Expert: Eileen Cronk - 3/31/2009

Question
I have a beautiful dining table hand made by an artist in my area.  It has a nice satin finish on it.  When I had someone in to clean the house, they put some kind of polish on the table (don't know what) and now the finish is streaky and I would like to remove whatever it was without damaging my table.

Thanks for your help

Answer
Hi Joan
Nice to hear from you.
Sorry this has happened but I hear this all the time.
In future tell the cleaning lady to leave the furniture alone LOL.
Too bad you don't know what she put on the table top but one would guess a polish of some kind...or Windex..yes I have heard of them doing that.
So first we take the careful route.
Get a warm slightly wet cloth and put a bit of dish soap on it...just a drop. Gentle rub a small area of the table and immediately dry it. If this takes the streaks out it likely was not wax or polish she used.
Second try..a bit of mineral spirits on a clean dry rag. Just a gentle rub and buff. Then your own wax.
One or the other of these fixes should work.
Good luck.
Eileen